Each map is a visual guide to where a particular bird species may find the climate conditions it needs to survive in the future. We call this the bird’s “climatic range.”
The colors indicate the season in which the bird may find suitable conditions— blue for winter, yellow for summer (breeding), and green for where they overlap (indicating their presence year-round).
The darker the shaded area, the more likely it is the bird species will find suitable climate conditions to survive there.
The outline of the approximate current range for each season remains fixed in each frame, allowing you to compare how the range will expand, contract, or shift in the future.
The first frame of the animation shows where the bird can find a suitable climate today (based on data from 2000). The next three frames predict where this bird’s suitable climate may shift in the future—one frame each for 2020, 2050, and 2080.
You can play or pause the animation with the orange button in the lower left, or select an individual frame to study by clicking on its year.
Over much of the past century, this huge, omnivorous gull has been, in a word, successful. Its range has expanded south along the Atlantic coast and inland to the Great Lakes. There may be additional changes ahead for the aggressive and adaptable Great Black-backed Gull, as the Audubon climate model forecasts significant shifting of the climate space in both summer and winter. Of concern in the summer, only 40% of the current range remains climate stable, and while large areas of the interior and western portions of the continent may become available it remains to be seen if this hulking predator will be able to rapidly shift with the changing climate space.
Explore more birds threatened by climate change around the country.
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